[pyritechips]

CYBERSPACE - More than 6,000 volunteers have joined forces to patrol the World Wide Web. Founded in the United States in 1995, the group called Cyberangels combats child pornography, and works to protect surfers from stalkers, pedophiles and other criminals operating online.
Its members work from home computers in more than 70 countries. Cyberangels is the world's oldest and largest on-line safety organization.
The group helps victims by explaining to them how they were tracked. In one case, a woman had plugged her personal information into a profile on her chat program - visible to anyone who wanted to check it out. A stalker did just that and terrified her, showing her her home address and phone number - gleaned from that profile.
Cyberangels estimates as many as 80,000 Canadians are stalked online annually. They say many of the stalkers are kids, thinking the harassment is a joke. Other cases are strangers who develop romantic obsessions, or former lovers who want revenge.
Kelley Beatty, deputy executive director, says many cases wouldn't occur without the Internet. She says it creates a sense of security for stalkers, making them feel untouchable.
Beatty says they often are - saying the laws against stalkers are largely ineffective and full of loopholes. Canada has a federal law against stalking and harassment, but nothing specific exists against cyberstalking.
Things get even more muddled when the harassment takes place across international borders and jurisdiction comes into play.
The group has built alliances with local and provincial police forces, the RCMP and other law-enforcement agencies. But with difficulties making charges stick, the Cyberangels say they often resolve cases on their own.
At any one time, there are over 200 Cyberangels online. They snare about 75 cyberstalkers every week around the globe.
They interview victims to find out the stalkers' habits, then locate the code for their Internet service provider, ISP. They can then inform the ISP of the user's behaviour, and give the victim some information to give to police. All this sends a, "Gotcha!" message to the stalker.
Beatty says often enough, when the tables are turned on the stalkers, they retreat.


Written by CBC News Online http://cbc.ca/bios.html

[eggplant43]

Thanks for posting this article. I am very familiar with CyberAngels. I first learned about them in a Reader's Digest article several years ago. I have refered people to them, and am friends with several of their volunteers as well. This is a very serious, helpful organization.

[eggplant43]

LAURIE EYNON: Presenting the everyday America

Christian Science Monitor Service



(September 26, 2002 4:30 p.m. EDT) - I was nervous, and mumbled a vague apology for my slide show before my first presentation. My audience, a classroom full of Danish teenagers, was eagerly awaiting this presentation from me, a visiting American. But the pictures of my life back in Indiana suddenly seemed so, well ... corny.
Corny, indeed. I actually had a slide showing tall stalks of corn growing in a field. That's part of the landscape in Indiana, I had reasoned when I took the picture.

I was in Denmark on an exchange program, living for three months in Aarhus, a city of about a quarter-million, and staying with Danish families while working in a local church and schools. I visited classrooms regularly to talk to students. Since so few American tourists travel beyond Copenhagen, a real-live American was a rarity. I wanted to make a good impression. I wanted them to like me.

But when I began my slide show, my confidence waned. Why didn't I have pictures of spectacular things - the New York City skyline, the Grand Canyon, and the White House?

I began clicking quickly through the 50 or so slides that depicted my life in my hometown - Columbus, Ind. Click. My house and garden. Click. My son playing with his dog. Click. Folks watching the Fourth of July parade go by. Click. The downtown light display at Christmas time.

Bo-ring.

Not so! My audience was ecstatic!

"Why, it looks like a nice place to live!" said one of the students with obvious surprise. One boy even apologized to me for all the negative images he had always held of the United States.

In the dozens of times I showed my slides to various classes and groups, I always got the same enthusiastic response. They had already seen all the famous images - Disney World, the Statue of Liberty, Michael Jordan, Pamela Anderson, thousands of times before. What they saw in my slides was totally new to them.

The Danish teenagers' impressions of our country - garnered through the media - were quite skewed. They knew the latest scandals in Washington, hot celebrity gossip out of Hollywood, hip trends from New York, sensationalistic crime reports, and the names of various American professional sports teams.

But my Danish friends knew little about ordinary Americans and their lives. Hearing about my life intrigued them.

Click. The covered bridge that spans the river in our city park.

Click. A farm stand with big orange pumpkins and bright yellow mums.

Click. Neighbor girls building a snowman in winter.

Click. My sons shooting free throws in the back yard.

Click. An outdoor concert on the library plaza.

It genuinely surprised my Danish audiences to see how ordinary, how normal, I was. I took it as a compliment. Their view of Americans was so colored by inane TV sitcoms and trashy talk shows (both imported from the United States), as well as by the reports of violence, crime, and political shenanigans that the news media sensationalize. It's no wonder my Danish audiences were surprised to see me - a "normal" person, much like their own friends and family.

No, I told them, I don't own a gun. I'm not grossly overweight. I do not chew gum constantly or wear loud clothing. I don't drive a gas-guzzling automobile or live in a palatial home. I don't swear constantly like a character in a Hollywood movie. I don't come across as arrogant or overbearing. In short, I didn't fit any of the stereotypes they had of Americans.

The Danish teens were eager to talk about things they'd heard and read about: gun violence, racial intolerance, and capital punishment, and how a civilized society could condone them. I could only speak for myself, but it apparently surprised them to hear my middle-of-the-road opinions. Were there other Americans like me?

I assured them there were.

Of course, all this happened before last Sept. 11.

After that event, when Americans began asking in anguish how people of other cultures could hate us so much, I remembered the Danes. They hardly hate us. They are our friends and political allies; they live in a free country with ready access to information. Yet many of their perceptions of America and Americans were cockeyed and unflattering.

I wonder if it's a peculiarly American trait - this wanting people to like us. If so, we're doing a poor job of it.

Here's an idea: Let's send planeloads of ordinary Americans to spend several months living among the citizens of other countries, just as I did.

They couldn't do any more harm than an episode of Jerry Springer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Shadow Bea]

Diet & Nutrition


Eating to Fight Cancer

Beyond quitting smoking, drinking less, losing weight, and exercising, lowering your risk of cancer is all about a healthy diet. Here's what to eat, and what to avoid, to stack the odds in your favor.

By John Casey



You already know that not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and drinking alcohol in moderation are keys to avoiding cancer. But what if you want to take cancer prevention one step further? What else can you do? Simple, say the experts -- eat right.


Though factors outside our control, such as genetics and environment, do play large roles in the development of cancer, a good diet can tip the scales in your favor.


Research shows that dietary patterns are closely associated with the risk for several types of cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that as many as 35% of cancer deaths may be related to dietary factors.


"Diets low in fat and high in fiber, fruits, vegetables, and grain products are associated with reduced risks for many cancers," says Elaine Magee, MPH, RD, author of Tell Me What to Eat to Help Avoid Breast Cancer and Eating Well for a Healthy Menopause, among others. In one recent two-year study, she says, non-melanoma skin cancer patients on a 20%-of-calories-from-fat diet had five times fewer new skin cancers at the end of the study compared with patients in the typical 38%-of-calories-from-fat control group.


In another recent study, says Magee, a lower-fat diet appeared to decrease breast-tissue density in menopausal women, which may decrease breast cancer risk.


Simple Plan


These American Institute for Cancer Research recommendations on diet and lifestyle can provide a starting point for your own cancer-prevention eating plan:


Don't eat more than 3 ounces of red meat daily -- about the size of a deck of cards.
Limit fatty foods.
Avoid salty snacks, and use herbs and spices instead of salt as seasoning.
Men should limit alcoholic drinks to two per day; women, to one per day.
Do not eat charred food.
Avoid being overweight. Limit weight gain during adulthood.
Take an hour's brisk walk (or get equivalent exercise) daily.

Although Americans are slowly adopting healthier diets, a large gap remains between recommended dietary patterns and what we actually eat. According to the CDC, only about 25% of adults in the U.S. eat the recommended five or more servings of fruits and vegetables each day.


"Eating five to nine servings of fruits and vegetables every day will do a lot to decrease cancer risk," says Melanie Polk, RD, director of nutrition for the American Institute of Cancer Research, or AICR.


Getting that many servings doesn't have to be hard, says Polk.


"Make it simple," she says. "Add a handful of blueberries to your cereal in the morning. If you're having a sandwich at lunch, throw in lots of tomato slices as well as lettuce. Broccoli can be added to soups or sprinkled over pizza with olives, onions, and mushrooms. Instead of having a packaged snack in the afternoon, have an apple or banana. It all helps."


Plant foods appear to be most protective against cancer. They are rich in fiber, antioxidants, and helpful phytochemicals.


"Preliminary evidence supports the speculation that substances in flaxseed may help block substances that promote cancer," says Magee. "Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish and certain plant foods, including flaxseed, have been shown in animal studies to slow or prevent the growth of certain cancers."


Diet for High-Risk People


A good diet can even help those with a family history of certain cancers beat the odds.


"A history of cancer in the family doesn't mean that every person in the family will get it," says Polk. "For someone at high risk, diet should be included as part of an early-detection screening plan set up by their doctor."


For the person already diagnosed with cancer, the nutrition picture is a little murkier. No single answer serves everyone.


"Body changes may be caused by the patient's response to the tumor, the side effects of treatment, certain medications, or some combination of these," says Magee. "Some dietary practices, like supplementing with flaxseed, might compete with a drug like Tamoxifen. That's why it's important to discuss diet with your oncologist."


Polk recommends that cancer patients work with a dietitian to make dietary decisions.


"When a patient gets involved in decisions like treatment and diet they feel less passive, more like they're part of their own healthcare team," she says.

Originally published Sept. 30, 2002.

[angelize56]

ROME (Reuters) - "Snow White," an Italian prostitute whose clients were as young as 12, may have infected them with the AIDS virus, a legal source said Thursday.

The 32-year-old woman called "Snow White" by her teen clients was arrested this week but her lawyer has requested she be released because she is HIV positive, the source said.

"Now magistrates fear that some of the youngsters would have been contaminated," the source said.

Police said the young woman confessed to charging up to $20 per visit, often accepting the pocket money given to the kids by their parents.

But according to the source the woman's lawyer has filed a request for her client to be released due to "incompatibility with prison" because she is HIV positive.

The request was initially denied but will be reviewed by authorities.

"Snow White," whose real name was not revealed, worked out of her apartment which was painted pink and filled with stuffed animals and toys, the police said.

The only client to provide testimony so far -- a 13-year-old boy -- said he always used protection.

[angelize56]

LONDON (Reuters) - Nurses from the Philippines about to start work in northern England are to be shown episodes of Britain's longest running soap opera, "Coronation Street," to familiarize them with local customs and accents.

A hospital in Macclesfield, Cheshire, has recruited the 24 nurses because it cannot get enough locally trained staff.

"They will watch 'Coronation Street' so they can understand the vernacular," James Middleton from the East Cheshire NHS Trust told Reuters Thursday.

The soap, set in a fictional working class district of Manchester, has been a favorite in Britain for 42 years.

Although the 24 nurses all speak English, their vocabulary is more American than British and there are worries it might lead to misunderstandings.

"If a patient whispered 'I want to spend a penny' I doubt whether a Filipino nurse would know what it meant," said Middleton.

The phrase is old-fashioned slang for wanting to visit the lavatory.

Britain faces an acute shortage of nurses and many hospitals have already recruited thousands of foreign medical staff

[Rep]

October surprises
Alexander Cockburn - Creators Syndicate

10.02.02 - October surprises are built into our system, since elections come in November. Cliffhanger movies in Hollywood's old days could not have staged it better. Leaving aside hurricanes roaring out of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening to drown Louisiana, we have:


A lockout at every port on the West Coast, with the owners begging George Bush to help them break the Longshoremen's union (ILWU) by imposing a cooling-off period under Taft Hartley and threatening to bring in the armed forces to work the ports.
Meanwhile, Bush's Homeland Security bill is on life-support because many Democrats have stigmatized it as a savage assault on labor's ability to organize in the federal sector.


A white-lipped economy. In the second quarter alone, pension wealth fell by over $469 billion, or 5.3 percent. House prices cushioned the blow a little but still left a net decline in wealth of 3.4 percent in one quarter, with its successor shaping up to be just as bad. There are uncertainties over the house price boom, plus rising unemployment. Bears rampage through the market.
Meanwhile, leading economic indicators and housing starts have fallen for three months in a row. Oil prices are up 40 percent since the start of the year.

We've now seen seven straight quarters of declining investment on plant and equipment, and a sharp drop of the growth of consumer spending over the past four or five months. There's increasing public awareness that the performance of many of America's mightiest corporate names has been based entirely on fraudulent numbers.

Last week, federal prosecutors announced that they were opening a criminal probe into Xerox's accounting practices. Xerox stock promptly fell 71 cents to $5.96. WorldCom revealed that it probably misreported $9 billion in revenue, not $7 billion.

Numbers from the telecommunications sector now lack any credibility, and given the fact that overcapacity in that sector is over 90 percent, the stage is set for total collapse. Not just WorldCom, but Verizon and the others.

Now move on to financial-service companies that abetted all the fraudulent shenanigans of companies like Enron and WorldCom. Consider their exposure in multi-billion-dollar suits from pension funds that ended up holding the bag.

The retail industry is having a miserable season, and a shutdown of every port on the West Coast is scarcely going to help.

The official rate of profit on capital stock in the non-financial corporate sector as a whole is (now) at its lowest level of the postwar period (except for 1980 and 1982).

If this were Bill Clinton, the commentators would be flaying him alive for wag-the-dog attempts to use war talk as a way to distract attention from economic bad news. Thus far, Bush has remained aloft on his magic carpet, but he's losing altitude steadily while Wall Street chews its lip, foreign denunciations pour in, and the German Social Democrats and Greens exult in the way Bush handed them an entirely unexpected victory with his Iraq bluster.

America no longer has "Wise Old Men" or Senior Reps of the Ruling Class like John McCloy, or even Clark Clifford. At moments like this, such Senior Reps would step forth with measured warnings to Bush about his reckless path. These days, we're left with Henry Kissinger and Brent Scowcroft, neither of whom carry much credibility.

Probably the nearest thing we have to a senior statesman is that brilliant Democratic politician, Senator Bobby Byrd, whose monuments strew West Virginia.

The only opponent Senator Bobby Byrd of West Virginia has to fear is death itself, so in Congress he speaks with a frankness rivaled only by the Texan libertarian Rep. Ron Paul. Byrd has excelled in speeches on the Senate floor.

Byrd denounced Bush's proposed Homeland Security Agency as a ramshackle, hastily conceived outrage to constitutional protections, a way of undercutting the hard rights of federal workers, all in a mission thusfar entirely undefined.

In another speech, Byrd gave Bush some derisive whacks on the topic of his warmongering against Iraq: "The president was dropping in the polls, and the domestic situation was such that the administration was appearing to be much like the emperor who had no clothes." Byrd described the coming of "the war fervor, the drums of war, the bugles of war, the clouds of war."

If the economy continues to slide, Bush and his circle will face a truly desperate gamble, trying to figure whether a $200 billion war on Iraq will save them or just plunge them into the mother of all messes. It could just be that the true picture, in Hollywood's idiom, is Bush tied to the track, hollering, "War," as the economy rolls right over him, and then over the cliff.

© 2002 Creators Syndicate

[eggplant43]

Today I believe this thread reached maturity. There are many different articles posted about a variety of things, just the way I envisioned it when I started the thread. It now has a life of it's own, and I think that's great. Thanks evryone for your contributions, I salute you

[eggplant43]

McCartney, Starr in Harrison tribute concert

LONDON (AP) — Former Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr will headline a tribute concert in memory of their late colleague, George Harrison, officials announced Thursday.

The event will be held at London's Royal Albert Hall on Nov. 29, the first anniversary of his death, and will feature British pianist Jools Holland, American rocker Tom Petty and Ravi Shankar, the sitar virtuoso who greatly influenced Harrison.

"The tribute for George will resound, not only within the Albert Hall but hopefully reach the spirit of the man so loved by his friends who will be performing and attending," said Harrison's widow, Olivia.

The former Beatle died Nov. 29, 2001, after a battle with cancer. He was 58.

The concert, which Eric Clapton is helping to organize, will feature a mix of Harrison's own music and his favourite songs.

Proceeds will go to the Material World Charitable Foundation, which Harrison funded. The foundation supports the arts, music, education and people with special needs.

[Shadow Bea]

By LARRY MARGASAK
.c The Associated Press

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Oct. 4) - John Walker Lindh is ready to accept a 20-year prison term, a deal struck in return for his information on former Taliban colleagues, Islamic extremists and possible al-Qaida attacks after Sept. 11, 2001.

The government told U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III last week that Lindh has fulfilled his agreement to cooperate, allowing prosecutors to drop more serious charges that could have brought a life sentence to the Californian who fought alongside the Taliban.

Lindh, 21, pleaded guilty last July to supplying services to the Taliban and carrying an explosive during commission of a felony. Each count carries a 10-year sentence.

Government officials said Lindh and other al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners told U.S. interrogators the Sept. 11 hijackings were supposed to be the first of three increasingly severe attacks against Americans. Their claims have not been corroborated, government officials said.

Lindh's lawyers have said his information did not come from high-ranking Taliban officials, but represented what he heard from fellow recruits at a training camp and, later, on the front lines in Afghanistan. The lawyers have said Lindh never swore loyalty to al-Qaida or its leader, Osama bin Laden.

Details of Lindh's extensive interrogation, part of his plea agreement, remain secret. But Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert who worked with defense lawyers and interviewed Lindh, said the Californian told him he picked up battlefield rumors about post-Sept. 11 attacks.

Reading from his interview notes, Gunaratna said Lindh told him:
''The original attack plan was in three phases, totaling 20 separate attacks. The first phase was ... two attacks on the World Trade Center, an attack on the Pentagon and a third attack on the White House.''

The notes also reflected that Lindh said: ''The second phase of attacks was going to be using biological agents and also attacks on natural gas and nuclear infrastructure.

''The second phase was going to make the U.S. forget about the first phase. The third phase was to finish the U.S. and was to take place within the next six months (after Sept. 11).''

Gunaratna said that while Lindh used the word ''biological,'' he believes from other sources that the weapon could be a radiological device, a so-called dirty bomb.

Gunaratna spoke with Lindh in his jail cell for eight hours on July 25-26 as a defense consultant, and submitted a report to a federal judge that concluded Lindh never swore loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Still, Gunaratna said, Lindh would be a valuable U.S. intelligence asset because he understood what makes Islamic fundamentalists join conflicts around the world.

Authorities have gathered similar information from prisoners of various levels of the terrorist network. But the officials said the United States hasn't found specific plans for two additional large-scale attacks and they suspect the claims could involve disinformation or folklore that circulated among low-level terrorists and Taliban soldiers after Sept. 11.

''We have not been able to corroborate the claims among the thousands of pages of documents and other evidence we have gathered the last year,'' one senior law enforcement official said. ''We believe some of these prisoners may have been trained to give misinformation or simply were passing on rumors.''

One law enforcement official said some al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners said the second and third wave attacks could involve biological, chemical or radiological weapons to increase casualties and were designed to paralyze Americans with fear and cripple the economy.

Lindh also said he heard that 50 people were going on 20 suicide missions, but added he received the information on the front lines in October - not prior to Sept. 11 when at a training camp, as his original indictment indicated.

Officials have had indications that additional attacks may have been planned immediately after Sept. 11.

For instance, shortly after the jetliner crashed into the Pentagon, German intelligence intercepted a phone call from the United States suggesting other terror teams were on the ground and ready to strike, U.S. and foreign intelligence officials say.

Officials said prisoners from the war on terrorism, including some kept at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have given similar accounts about two more attacks that were supposed to follow Sept. 11.

The details of the prisoners' account vary widely, officials said, but most agree that the subsequent attacks were supposed to be more severe than the Sept. 11 attacks that leveled the World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, crashed a plane in Pennsylvania and killed more than 3,000.

AP-NY-10-04-02 0454EDT

Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.

[mole]

Rule-bending trend

By George F. Will
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Thursday, October 3, 2002

WASHINGTON -- About two hours after Sen. Robert Torricelli's weepy press conference, in which he -- a liberal, hence nimble at victim-mongering -- proclaimed himself a victim of America's defect ("When did we become such an unforgiving people?"), the presses of the Democratic Party's newsletter, The New York Times, were printing an editorial exercise in situational ethics.

The Times -- sometimes a stickler for legality, sometimes not -- said "legal wrangling over ballot access cannot be allowed to obscure the central issue, which is one of democracy." Here we go again.

Now people may fully understand the recklessness of what Al Gore almost accomplished in Florida. Unhappy about the result the political process was producing, he tried, with the assistance of a compliant state Supreme Court, to rewrite the rules of the process.

Election laws are supposed to be exacting so they can prevent just such last-minute frenzies by people frightened of losing. Yet today Democrats are asserting this principle: Anytime -- even just 36 days before an election -- a party has discouraging polls about a candidate, that party can replace him. Even if, as in New Jersey, voting has already begun -- many military and other absentee ballots have already been mailed.

The Times says "democracy" depends on this principle. If so, democratic theory contains this Clunker Codicil: If a party saddles itself with a clunker of a candidate, then the impending election would somehow not be what the Times calls a "genuine," meaning "competitive, " election.

Question: Of this year's 469 House and Senate races, how many are "competitive" by the Times' standards (if it has any, other than that Democrats should prosper)? Probably not 50.

The day after Torricelli withdrew, New Jersey's Democratic Party awarded Torricelli's place to his former colleague, former Sen. Frank Lautenberg, 78. New Jersey law, which the Times and other Democrats consider an impediment to "democracy" and which one of the Democrats' lawyers called a "technicality," says that any ballot vacancy, "howsoever caused," not later than 51 days prior to an election shall be filled in a prescribed manner. Torricelli withdrew 36 days before the election.

Democrats said the silence of the law -- it cannot anticipate all the ploys that knaves can imagine -- about the deliberate creation of a ballot vacancy for transparent political reasons leaves them free to do anything that is not explicitly proscribed. The third branch of New Jersey's Legislature, aka. the state's famously "progressive" Supreme Court, agreed.

Doing so, it breezily said that doing the Democrats' bidding served "the two party system" and "the general intent" of the law written quite differently by the other two branches of New Jersey's Legislature, and now rewritten by the third. Perhaps the U.S. Supreme Court will have something to say about the compatibility of the New Jersey court's ruling with the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of due process and stipulation that state legislatures (the ones not wearing robes) shall determine the time, place and manner of elections.

This is a recipe for anarchy every election year, and not just in New Jersey.

Torricelli is not dead (being terminally ill, politically, does not count). He is not incapacitated (being ethically challenged does not count). He is not in jail (with his contributor David Chang, one of seven people who pleaded guilty to making illegal contributions to Torricelli). Were he any of those three there might be grounds for waiving the 51-day limit. But poll results that sadden Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle are not grounds.

Torricelli's career of political sociopathy, of rule-bending and rule-breaking, concludes, fittingly, with a crescendo of cynical rule-inventing. One week before Torricelli's self-immolation, Daschle told a Trenton audience that "the future of this country" depended on Torricelli's re-election. But when Daschle and other Democratic advocates of voter amorality failed to persuade New Jersey to be unconcerned about Torricelli's character and record, Torricelli withdrew, thereby enabling Democrats to say New Jersey was thereby denied a choice. It was a Torricellian twist on an old joke: A child kills his parents and demands mercy because he is an orphan.

A political party's enthusiastic embrace of the likes of Torricelli should be like getting drunk -- a wretched excess that carries its own punishment. The party should stay locked in the embrace it voluntarily entered into with a reprobate, until voters are given a chance to render their judgment on the party's judgment.

For 36 days in Florida in 2000, Democrats displayed ferocious contempt for any rules under which they do not win. Next month, voters everywhere should consider the New Jersey spectacle when weighing how much power Democrats deserve.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[mole]

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 4, 2002
The Washington Post


"This nation is prepared to present its case against the Soviet threat to peace, and our own proposals for a peaceful world, at any time and in any forum -- in the Organization of American States, in the United Nations, or in any other meeting that could be useful -- without limiting our freedom of action."

-- President John F. Kennedy, Cuban missile crisis, address to the nation, Oct. 22, 1962

"I'm waiting for the final recommendation of the Security Council before I'm going to say how I'm going to vote."

-- Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Iraq crisis, address to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Sept. 27, 2002

How far the Democrats have come. Forty years ago to the month, President Kennedy asserts his willingness to present his case to the United Nations, but also his determination not to allow the United Nations to constrain America's freedom of action. Today his brother, a leader of the same party, awaits the guidance of the United Nations before he will declare himself on how America should respond to another nation threatening the United States with weapons of mass destruction.

Ted Kennedy is not alone. Much of the leadership of the Democratic Party is in the thrall of the United Nations. War and peace hang in the balance. The world waits to see what the American people, in Congress assembled, will say. These Democrats say: Wait, we must find out what the United Nations says first.

The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, would enshrine such lunacy in legislation, no less. He would not even authorize the use of force without prior U.N. approval. Why? What exactly does U.N. approval mean?

It cannot mean the U.N. General Assembly, which is an empty debating society. It means the Security Council. Now, the Security Council has five permanent members and 10 rotating members. Among the rotating members is Syria. How can any senator stand up and tell the American people that before deciding whether America goes to war against a rogue state such as Iraq, it needs to hear the "final recommendation" of Syria, a regime on the State Department's official terrorist list?

Or maybe these senators are awaiting the wisdom of some of the other nonpermanent members. Cameroon? Mauritius? Guinea? Certainly Kennedy and Levin cannot be saying that we must not decide whether to go to war until we have heard the considered opinion of countries that none of their colleagues can find on a map.

Okay. So we are not talking about these dots on the map. We must be talking about the five permanent members. The United States is one. Another is Britain, which supports us. That leaves three. So when you hear senators grandly demand the support of the "international community," this is what they mean: France, Russia and China.

As I recently asked in this space, by what logic does the blessing of these countries bestow moral legitimacy on American action? China's leaders are the butchers of Tiananmen Square. France and Russia will decide the Iraq question based on the coldest calculation of their own national interest, meaning money and oil.

Everyone in the Senate wants a new and tough inspection regime in Iraq: anytime, anywhere, unannounced. Yet these three countries, whose approval the Democrats crave, are responsible for the hopelessly diluted and useless inspection regime that now exists.

They spent the 1990s doing everything they could to dismantle the Gulf War mandate to disarm Saddam Hussein. The Clinton administration helplessly acquiesced, finally approving a new Security Council resolution in 1999 that gave us the current toothless inspections regime. France, Russia and China, mind you, refused to support even that resolution; they all abstained because it did not make yet more concessions to Saddam Hussein.

After a decade of acting as Saddam Hussein's lawyers on the Security Council, these countries are now to be the arbiters of America's new and deadly serious effort to ensure Iraqi disarmament.

So insist leading Democrats. Why? It has no moral logic. It has no strategic logic. Forty years ago, we had a Democratic president who declared that he would not allow the United Nations or any others to tell the United States how it would defend itself. Would that JFK's party had an ounce of his confidence in the wisdom and judgment of America, deciding its own fate by its own lights, regardless of the wishes of France.

Or Cameroon.

[eggplant43]

LONDON, England --The world's funniest joke has been revealed after a year-long search by scientists.

In an experiment conducted in Britain, people around the world were invited to judge jokes on an Internet site as well as contribute their own.

The LaughLab research, carried out by psychologist Dr. Richard Wiseman, from the University of Hertfordshire, attracted more than 40,000 jokes and almost two million ratings.

And here it is...

Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn't seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy takes out his phone and calls the emergency services.

He gasps: "My friend is dead! What can I do?" The operator says: "Calm down, I can help. First, let's make sure he's dead." There is a silence, then a gunshot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says: "OK, now what?"

Wiseman said the joke worked across many different countries and appealed to men and women and young and old alike.

"Many of the jokes submitted received higher ratings from certain groups of people, but this one had real universal appeal," he said.

As well as identifying the joke which appealed most to people around the world, the experiment revealed wide humour differences between nations.

People logging onto the LaughLab Web site were invited to rate jokes using a "Giggleometer" which had a five-point scale ranging from "not very funny" to "very funny".

One intriguing result was that Germans -- not renowned for their sense of humour -- found just about everything funny and did not express a strong preference for any type of joke. (Full story)

People from the Republic of Ireland, the UK, Australia and New Zealand most enjoyed jokes involving word plays.

Many European countries, such as France, Denmark and Belgium, displayed a penchant for off-beat surreal humour, while Americans and Canadians preferred jokes where there was a strong sense of superiority -- either because a character looks stupid or is made to look stupid by someone else.

Europeans also enjoyed jokes that involved making light of topics that make people feel anxious, such as death, illness and marriage.

Wiseman said: "These results are really interesting. It suggests that people from different parts of the world have fundamentally different senses of humour.

"Humour is vital to communication and the more we understand about how people's culture and background affect their sense of humour, the more we will be able to communicate effectively.

"Also, we find jokes funny for lots of different reasons. They sometimes make us feel superior to others, reduce the emotional impact of anxiety-provoking situations or surprise us because of some kind of incongruity.

"The hunters joke contained all three elements."

Bizarrely, computer analysis of the data also showed that jokes containing 103 words were thought to be especially funny. The winning "hunters" joke was 102 words long.

Many jokes submitted contained references to animals. Jokes mentioning ducks were considered particularly funny.

Hello eggplant,

That's really interesting. I've just got back from a neighbour's (an American whose been living here for many years), and she told me about this. I certainly enjoy "word play" jokes and puns.

Apparently the Belgians hugely enjoyed the one about a dog (a
GSD) going into a telegraph office. The official read out the message to make sure it was OK. It read

woof woof woof woof woof woof woof woof

and he said to the dog, but that's only 8 words, you are allowed one more.

The dog said "but one more wouldn't make sense"!


T2

[eggplant43]

Amorous ostriches scoop Ig Nobel prize


00:30 04 October 02
Jeff Hecht


An investigation into why amorous UK ostriches were failing to breed is just one of the winners of the 2002 Ig Nobel Prizes. The annual awards for achievements that "cannot or should not be reproduced" were presented at Harvard University on 3 October.

Work on scrotal asymmetry in men and sculpture, the surface area of Indian elephants and a Japanese dog bark translator were among the other recipients of Ig Nobels, awarded annually by the humour magazine, the Annals of Improbable Research.

British poultry farmers trying to raise ostriches in the 1990s called in scientists to find out why their birds were failing to breed. Careful observations confirmed the birds were courting the farm workers rather than each other, Norma Bubier of Pro-Natura UK and colleagues reported in a seminal paper in British Poultry Science (vol 39, p 477), entitled Courtship behavior of ostriches toward humans under farming conditions in Britain.

The research was no laughing matter for the scientists or the farmers. Ostriches are big. "You wouldn't want to be in a pen with an amorous ostrich, because if it tried to climb on top of you, you'd be in serious trouble," says Charles Paxton of the University of St. Andrews, who shared the Ig Nobel in Biology with Bubier, Phil Bowers, and Charles Deeming.

Most of the birds had been hand-raised by humans, and Paxton suspects they identified with people when they went looking for mates. However, the British ostrich industry collapsed before he could investigate further.


Super woofer


Chris McManus of University College London earned the Ig Nobel Prize in Medicine for resolving the long-standing issue of Scrotal asymmetry in man and in ancient sculpture (Nature, vol 259, p 426).

While on vacation in Italy, McManus remembered an 18th century art historian's claim that in statues "the left testicle is always the larger, as in nature". He took a closer look at 107 anatomically correct male statues, and found that the historian was right about most statues but wrong about men, which normally have larger right testicles.

Weighing in on a larger matter, Kannoth Sreekumar of Kerala Agricultural University in India earned the Ig Nobel mathematics prize for his paper Estimation of the total surface area in Indian Elephants. Sreekumar was able to derive equations to estimate elephantine surface area from measurements of a couple of body parts, vastly simplifying the problem.

Other 2002 Ig Nobel awards included the Peace prize to the developers of an electronic device that translates a dog's barking into Japanese and the physics prize to Arnd Leike of the University of Munich for showing the head on beer follows an exponential decay law. The economics prize was shared among a long list of corporations for "adapting the mathematical concept of imaginary numbers for use in the business world."